The Coral Genius
by Numbered.Tables
Summary: For the good of Konoha, Shikamaru becomes the host of the three-tailed Isobu. How will a second tailed beast affect Konoha? Follow Shikamaru through his ninja career. Title subject to change.
1. Prologue

Being an orphan in a ninja village wasn't rare, sadly, it wasn't even uncommon. Hayate grew up in a fairly nice house with several other children whose parents' lives had also been cut short. He had a healthy upbringing; the caring old couple that looked after them were always there when he needed them, he always had food and clothes, there wasn't little that he could complain about really.

There were, however, some situations where being one of eight was less than desirable. Times like when he needed help with his studies when he was at the academy; he had graduated a few months ago and was now a part of the ninja forces that protected the village. There were sadly other times that were a little more serious.

The day had been like any other, his team had been assigned a D-rank to work one a couple of the gardens of the East side of the village. Hayate wouldn't admit it but there was a part of him that really did enjoy planting new flowers and keeping the gardens in order; their village really was beautiful. His team then spent a couple of hours at training ground fourteen; a small field with a couple of trees keeping it from looking too empty. He tired himself out with his katana; it really wasn't a special day.

The sun was slowly descending the sky; a warm red illuminated the streets as he took a scenic route home. That was the last clear thought he could remember having. The rest of the night was a blur; it was almost dream-like, he couldn't remember anything clearly.

He was a genin, he should have been helping but his mind just couldn't comprehend what was happening. Blood. Screams. An unearthly roar.

Hayate woke in what would normally have been a pristine hospital room but there was blood staining the floor and he was led on what seemed to be a pile of sheets. His skin was grey; the dull ache of his body and the trouble he felt when trying to breathe told him that he had got into a little trouble out on the street. Slams and distant shouts from outside told him that whatever had happened hadn't yet been resolved.

He was brought back from his thoughts by a scream coming from a woman only metres away from him in one of the two beds; not a makeshift one like his own. As he watched, she yelled obscenities at the two medics that stumbled around her. For a second he thought she was badly injured but as his brain slowed down and he heard the medics trying to soothe the woman, he found out the she was giving birth. The middle of a battle was probably not the best time for this but he knew that it wasn't something that the woman could really control.

He sat there silently, watching the woman scream and cry as a new life entered the world. Inwardly wondering why people described this as one of the most beautiful things you would ever get to see, on the contrary, Hayate felt uncomfortable and may or may not have been having sympathy pains. He could understand, though, when he heard the sound of the newborn crying and saw the look on the mother's face. There was no way to explain the look on her face; that pure affection.

There was no telling how long that moment lasted but the young genin couldn't take his eyes off of the woman and her baby. She just stared down into her arms where the baby had been placed.

A cough broke through the room and Hayate saw the women look up to the source. A familiar face, the strong jaw of the Jonin Commander; his hair no longer tied and two deep cuts letting blood leak down from his forehead and cheek.

The man didn't look at the other occupants of the room; he only had eyes for the woman. As they made eye contact, he could see the pure sorrow in the man's eyes and the woman immediately broke into tears.

He crossed the room and as they shared a quick embrace, he whispered something into her ear. He scooped up the baby into his arms and looked the woman straight in the eyes once more. The Jonin Commander then left the room.

The hospital room remained quiet, the only noise being the muffled sobs coming from the woman. Barely twenty minutes could have passed before nothing could be heard outside.

Hayate drifted off to sleep, hoping that whatever this was, it would never happen again. Sadly, barely two weeks after the events of that night, Konoha would be attacking by the Nine-tails. The damage caused to the village would seem irreparable and Konoha would never be the same again.

* * *

**A/N: I won't be including many A/Ns. I just wanted to say that this was just a prologue, chapters will be longer. I don't have a good track record for updating so I'm sorry if I don't update regularly/ I may forget the story altogether. I'm more of a reader than a writer. If anyone wants to beta then please message me; I will definitely need the help. Also, if you have any ideas for the title, please put them forward. **

**I do not own Naruto.**


	2. Chapter One

Blue was probably his favourite colour. Not just any blue; a calming baby blue. The colour of the sky on the best days; when it isn't too bright to look at nor too dull, threatening rain. The best days were calm with light clouds floating carelessly against the beautiful canvas.

Shikamaru's body collapsed to the soft grass with a thud and he looked up at the sky. He could spend hours just watching the clouds if it were up to him, sadly he didn't get that luxury. His eyes shifted over to the familiar face that stared at him. Hayate had been a permanent fixture in his life for as long as he could remember. His mother always told him that the young man was a family friend which Shikamaru had accepted. The man seemed like the older brother that he had never particularly wanted but wouldn't lose.

Shikamaru let out a yawn as the older man grasped his hand and yanked him off of the ground. "Not bad." The man spoke vaguely.

His 'older brother', as he had termed, had been rather relentless over the past few years with training. Shikamaru had been in the academy for a while now and was days away from graduating. He would be in classes all day, granted, he would usually be sleeping or daydreaming, but he would be at the academy for eight or so hours and then get dragged out to train with Hayate whenever the man was free.

Shikamaru wasn't stupid. In fact, he was very clever and much more aware of his surroundings than most people seemed to be. Hayate's interest in his training did spark questions about why he was so vested in Shikamaru getting stronger. When he was younger, he had asked his mother why the man made him train so much. Yoshino told him that it was just because he cared. That had satisfied Shikamaru for a while; Chouji's father did sometimes train him, so why wouldn't his brother want to train him? It wasn't like he had a father to do it.

It wasn't a particularly sore spot for Shikamaru, he knew that as a ninja, you put your life on the line to protect and do your job. Shikamaru never knew his father; Yoshino just said that he died on a mission. He could tell how hard it was for his mother to talk about the man so he didn't bring the man up often. He did, however, get snippets of information about his father from Hayate: telling of how the man was the chief strategist for the village, how he was the Jonin Commander who helped make the village what it was today.

His father's death meant the he was technically the Head of the Nara family; a role that belonged to his mother in reality. The Nara clan wasn't as large as some of the families in Konoha but there were a decent bunch; several smaller family units with five elders. Being the Clan-head didn't really mean anything apart from representing the family's interests on the council, a position that he wouldn't have been able to fulfil. His mother was a bit of a force, he had heard from Hayate since that his mother was unmoving and unrelenting in the council. Shikamaru knew that his father had been the Jonin Commander of Konoha and had been one of the closest advisors for both the third and fourth Hokages. His mother was only a chunin yet she made sure that she was heard, not only about the interests of her clan but for everyone in Konoha; you didn't spend that long around a Nara and not pick up on a few things.

He was nine when he found out the truth; in hindsight it shouldn't have taken him that long. The general unease and discomfort that people had around him was a major factor. It was like they didn't know what to do with themselves around him, Chouji was fine, so were the other children but most adults gave him odd looks that he didn't understand. Shikamaru prided himself on his on understanding things and when he pieced together all of the things that Iruka had taught him, that Hayate had said in passing, that his mother had avoided saying; he knew that he was a jinchuuriki.

At first he had no idea what he felt. It was just shock, a numbness filled him. Was he a monster? No… Was he the container for a monster? The reserved voice in the back of his head, it made sense… That voice wasn't him. But, it didn't feel like a monster. He wasn't being told to kill people, there wasn't a bloodlust. There was just an urging, a need to get stronger, to get better; to live.

They didn't talk about the tailed beasts much in the academy. It was a bit of a sore spot for the village but when they did, they learned that the beasts were evil; that they craved death and destruction. It just seemed… Wrong.

Shikamaru's mind went to his training when he found out. More training than anyone else… Was he a weapon? No. He couldn't be. All he had to do was look at the older man and he knew he was being stupid. Hayate did truly care for him.

His training wasn't anything particularly special; it was just the basics really. Lots of running and dodging left him arguably a bit more flexible and nimble than most of his peers. A focus on chakra control exercises left Shikamaru much more aware of his body and his chakra than someone his age should have been. His chakra reserves were special, a characteristic he assumed was linked to being a jinchuuriki; he also had the control and stamina to mean that he had never suffered from chakra depletion. His training really was just the basics, lately though, his teacher seemed to be expanding on it: they were training taijutsu more often and it wasn't uncommon to be pulled into a spar. The spars all seemed to go the same way: Shikamaru would try his hardest to evade the attacks of the tokubetsu jonin and might be able to last for a couple of minutes but would ultimately be knocked to the floor. He supposed that the changes were because Shikamaru would be leaving the academy to join the ranks of the ninja force in only a few days.

He was brought out of his musings by the man's coughing. Shikamaru almost didn't even notice it anymore; Hayate's coughing was chronic. It had started about a year ago; the man had left the village for a couple of weeks on a mission and when he came back he had the cough. While Shikamaru tried to question him about it at first, the man just evaded the topic. Never getting an answer, Shikamaru stopped trying though thoughts about it did plague him; was it a symptom for an illness? Was Hayate going to be ok?

With a brief dismissal and a promise to be over for a meal that evening, Hayate disappeared in a cloud of smoke. While he said he had work to do, he knew that the man was actually going to go see his girlfriend, the beautiful purple-haired woman, Yugao. While he had only met the woman a handful of times, he thought she seemed quite nice; she didn't seem to care that he was a jinchuuriki and he knew that she really cared for his brother.

Casting his glance around him, Shikamaru gathered the handful of kunai that were imbedded in one of the few trees on the training ground before leaving the field. He let his mind drift off and his feet led the way. He was already half way there when the soon-to-be genin realised where he was going; the small lakes situated near the Nara grounds were a great place to swim.

* * *

The genin exams had been easy, far too easy. If that was all it took to become a member of your village's ninja forces, it didn't exactly fill Shikamaru with confidence in his future career. A simple henge, two clones and a simple accuracy test; he put as little effort into it as he possibly could, why bother with the flourishes that people like Ino put into it? A pass is a pass. This same philosophy carried over into the exam paper where he proceeded to write the minimum to pass. And there he was.

Forehead resting against the cold, hard wood of the table, Shikamaru's thoughts went to how comfortable the position was. This wasn't a new discovery of course, he had a good five years of knowing this and the fact had helped him through a number of dull classes. He was done. His time at the academy was over and he was a proper ninja now.

His eyes were closed so he didn't see the bright orange that would signal the fact that Naruto had entered the room; he did, however, hear the annoying screech of the pink-haired girl two rows in front of him. "What are you doing here Naruto? This is only for people that passed."

Shikamaru tried to block out the response; it was nothing personal, he just enjoyed quiet. While they weren't exactly friends, he was probably one of the few people in the class that really did like the loud blond. Shikamaru related to him; the whole housing a demon thing did mean that they did have a bit in common. Naruto had come off a lot worse in his life than Shikamaru had; it was clear that most of the villagers hated the boy where they were just uncomfortable around the Nara. The blond also didn't have a family to look after him; he knew that his life would have been a lot worse if his mother hadn't been there, or even if she just wasn't so outspoken. No one would dare face the wrath of that woman. Ever before he had figured out what he was, the Nara knew there was something about Naruto, something similar between them even though their personalities were so different. He didn't know if the blond felt it as well but he tried his best to always be nice to him, even though Naruto was undoubtedly, incredibly annoying.

It did seem almost funny that there were two of the nine jinchuuriki were the same age, in the same village and had been having classes together for most of their life. Though they didn't talk about the tailed beasts in the academy, he knew enough to piece together that Naruto was the Kyuubi; the nine-tails. The destruction to the village and the amount of people who died that night would help to explain why so many people seemed to hate him. He himself was house to the three-tails. When he had figured out that he was a jinchuuriki, he struggled with himself for a month or so. He didn't even need to tell Hayate that he had worked it out, the tokubetsu jonin could tell and he somehow knew how to talk the Nara through it. Looking back on his life, Shikamaru wondered what he would have been like if he didn't have the man or his mother. His life may have ended like Naruto's. But he didn't have the optimism that the blond had; he didn't have the drive or passion for it. Shikamaru wasn't even sure he would still be alive if it weren't for his loved ones.

Shikamaru focused on the soft munching coming from his left that told him that Chouji hadn't yet finished his bag of crisps. Before long, he could hear the noise of Iruka trying to calm down the class. It took a good few minutes before his voice was clear and the room was silent. This was it. The moment they had been looking forward to for the last five years. There were finally escaping the classroom and were being sent out into the proper action of life as a ninja.

Shikamaru raised his head from the table and looked around the room, eyes skating across the hair that could have belonged to a Nara to the bright orange tracksuit to statue-still Aburame boy in the corner. He blocked out Iruka's speech as he surveyed the people in the room; only enough for a handful of teams, quite a few people at the academy would drop out and move to the civilian school down the street; life as a ninja wasn't for everyone.

He didn't have to hear the words to know that his speech was over. There was an odd tension in the room as everyone paid a little more attention. What happened next would define their careers, could mean the difference between life and death. He looked at the other students once more and it became clear that he was the only one not focusing on his sensei. It wasn't that he didn't care; it was that he already knew what was going to happen. Hayate had once talked about his father's team. The Ino-Shika-Cho team had arguably the best teamwork of any team formed in Konoha. The tokubetsu jonin may have been embellishing, but the way he spoke made it sound like they worked like a body; knowing exactly what each other were thinking, the perfect team. It seemed odd that all of them would have children in the same year but the village would have been stupid not to put them together.

Shikamaru grew up with Ino and Chouji; he had seen pictures of them all as toddlers. It seemed his father's death didn't sever the ties between the three families, he saw Inoichi and Choza as uncles. Up until a few years ago the three were still great friends but Ino started to drift off; her interest in Sasuke and competition with Sakura effectively getting in the way of their friendship. She probably wasn't going to be happy that she didn't get to be on a squad with the Uchiha, a small part of him took a certain amount of pleasure as he saw the furious look on her face when Team Seven was formed. How dare Sakura be put on the same team as her crush. Shikamaru was proven right when the next generation of Ino-Shika-Cho became Team Ten.

As they were sent to another room, Shikamaru's keen observation skills told him that Ino wasn't completely satisfied with how that went.

"I can't believe I'm stuck with you when Sakura gets to be with Sasuke. This is so unfair!"

The blonde dramatically flicked her ponytail to punctuate the insult.

He ignored the girl and looked to his best friend. Chouji didn't seem to care that they just got insulted. That boy was the kindest and most relaxed person he had ever met; that is unless you called him fat, a word that Shikamaru now avoided using in any situation. The larger boy seemed to completely disregard what Ino had just said and seemed pretty happy with the team, probably looking forward to the three returning to the easy friendship that they used to have.

They didn't have time to say anything else as when Ino pushed the door open she stopped harshly with one foot inside the door. As Shikamaru peeked over her shoulder, he saw the man in room.

Stood watching them casually was a well built man; his arms were probably bigger than Shikamaru's head. He had short, spiked dark hair and stood at an impressive height. These were of course all things that Shikamaru had already known, because, in front of him stood one of the best known jonin in Konoha: Asuma Sarutobi.

The man was a powerhouse, they had been taught about him, the man that was accepted as one of the twelve Guardians of the Land of Fire; son of, arguably, the strongest ninja that any of them would ever meet. Shikamaru shouldn't have been surprised. It made sense really: a good way to tie the jinchuuriki to the village. It also meant that the Hokage had a closer eye on him.

As Ino led them into the room, Shikamaru looked at the three faces around him; team ten.

"This is going to be fun…" The Nara muttered, sarcasm clear from his tone.

* * *

**A/N – Just to say, I'm from England, so no, I'm not spelling things wrong. Also, if anyone wants to suggest a pairing, go ahead. Also, I don't follow the anime so will not be including and might contradict whatever they show.**


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